today in music

Main menu

Archive | December 2012

December 26, 1963: The Beatles’ I Saw Her Standing There is released in the United States.

day 263

I Saw Her Standing There is a bar room classic and one of the first Beatles songs I ever sang along to as a kid.

I watched some of the 2001 NYC concert with Paul McCartney last night on Showtime. Best part of the concert was watching him in the green room hanging out talking to all his old friends. And of course once he was onstage he rocked it.

Tomorrow we are heading out for a few days in the Poconos. A little fireplace, some light eating and it sounds like we’re gonna have some snow. Looking forward to a reboot before the New Year!

December 25, 1982 David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s duet, The Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth, reaches #1 in the UK.

merry christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

Today was a beautiful day although I ate too much and feel a little blargie. I don’t know if that’s a real word but that’s what Claudia and i call it when we are stuffed! It was those damn shrimp parmigiana! I just can’t stop eating them, and it doesn’t help that Claudia cooks for an army even though we only had 6 people today! We missed having our Casey today, and I want to wish all my family and good friends a Merry Christmas and a good safe holiday week!

I was practicing The Little Drummer Boy this afternoon as we were getting ready for an early dinner and my father-in-law Mike suggested I add a little left hand drum drone, and of course he was right! So he gets credit for this arrangement of drummer boy!

This was a great duet – Bing Crosby had such a rich baritone voice and David Bowie sang tenor and they sounded great together!

December 24, 1818: Germany’s Franz Gruber composes a melody to words written by Austrian priest Josef Mohr, creating the standard Silent Night. The song is debuted tonight at Midnight Mass in Gruber’s hometown of Obendorf. (via about.com)

christmas eve 1990

Christmas Eve was a great tradition for us. Our family house on East 19th street in Brooklyn was the xmas hub where all friends and family came. It was a 13 room house so we could fit everyone. All my cousins would sleep over and my friends and I would put on these nightgowns and we would have a puba party. I’m not sure where that name came from. We would put on an old Ace Cannon record and dance around. Then before the young ones went to sleep we would sing Christmas carols around the piano.

In the morning we all had to get up so damn early and wait on the steps until my Uncle John got the video ready. Then mayhem would erupt as 15 kids ripped through presents. Now this was tradition when I was a kid and stayed true through my kids and my cousins’ kids childhood!

Chet Baker was always known as a great trumpet player then he started singing and There Will Never Be Another You is the song he is best known for as a singer! He had this quiet relaxed voice that swung so hard.

It seemed so easy but it takes great disipline to play simple and swing hard without being loud. I’m still practicing. It’s not easy.

Today was the pre-Christmas food shopping day. A little Costco, Target,and Fairway and then naptime.

The New York football teams are letting us down, but I still like watching all the other teams. They are like gladiators going into battle. Great atheletes are always fun to watch!

Anyway, I still come back to Chet Baker when I want to hear nice relaxing jazz. I’m a little too old for the frantic stuff!

December 22, 1958: The Chipmunks’ The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late) hits #1!

the kids had a ball

The Chipmunks! Now that was hell of a singing group – Alvin, Theodore and Simon. I think Alvin had the lead on The Chipmunk Song. These guys could party!

Had a beautiful time at Ann Ruckert‘s Holiday sing-a-long today. Her choir did a great job — i’m always interested to hear and play for her up and coming singers — and I got to see some good friends like George & Lizi and Chris & Janelle.

Chris and Janelle did a couple of songs holding their 2 sons Tony and Roman. That’s kinda cheating singing while showing off 2 adorable kids. It was good to see Frank Beacham there. Hadn’t seen him in a while. But i missed having Pepper Swinson! Next year, Pepper!

All in all it was a sweet, happy Christmas vibe. The kids all had a ball, dancing around and the adults had fun, too! Thanks, Ann.

I was thinking of going to movie tonight- the new Jack Reacher with Tom Cruise but we would have to go out into the cold so that’s not happening. TV & popcorn it is.

By the way, if you are used to getting notices about new videos/blog entries here from youtube, you probably won’t be getting those cause i’ve been putting my videos on Vimeo.com. But never fear, if you want a notice that there’s a new entry you can sign up for notices from the blog, somewhere in the column on the right.

Here ya go, Chipmunk fans. A little medley of the Chipmunk Song and Silver Bells.